Welcome to Stories from Among the Stars. You're listening to The House in the Surulian Sea by

T.J. Clune, narrated by Daniel Henning.

Nine. On the first Friday, Linus Baker spent on the island, he received an invitation.

It wasn't one he expected, and upon hearing it, he wasn't sure it was one he wanted to accept.

He could think of six or seven or quite possibly one hundred things he'd rather do.

He had to remind himself he was on Marseus for a reason,

and it was important he see all sides of the orphanage. The invitation had come from a knock

on the door of the guesthouse, where Linus was attempting to finish his first report

from his time on Marseus. The ferry would come tomorrow to take him to the mainland,

so he could send it via post back to Dicamy. He'd been deep into his writing, careful to only

allow one admonition per page regarding extremely upper management's lack of transparency,

before sending him to the island. He'd made it a game of sorts,

trying to make his responses to their transgressions as subtle as possible.

He'd been thankful for the interruption of a knock at the door, when the last line he'd written

read, and furthermore, the very idea that extremely upper management would employ obfuscation and outright

deception with their caseworkers is most uncivilized.

It was probably for the best if he rethought that last sentence.

He was pleasantly surprised to find Mr. Parnassus standing on the porch of the guesthouse,

looking windswept and warm in the

afternoon sunlight, something that Linus was finding himself not only getting used to seeing, but rather

looking forward to. He told himself, it was because Mr. Parnassus was a cheery fellow, and if this

were the real world, perhaps they could

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